Case Study: Boats and Solar

Boats are normally powered by engines that run on diesel or petrol. However, this can pollute the very water it is on. Boats can cause water pollution by leaking gas and oil into the water. In fact, in some parts of the world, diesel and petrol engine boats are banned in lakes and rivers. Electric boats become the only alternative available. In fact, electric boats are becoming commonplace in Britain's inland waters.

In Singapore, the government has planned to dam the Singapore River at its outlet to the sea to create a new reservoir of freshwater. As part of the ongoing plan to prevent the pollution of this water source, the government has banned petrol and diesel engine boats in Singapore River.

For our latest project, Kamtex Solar has designed a solar power system for the new Duck Tours electric boats tranversing the Singapore River. The solar power system was designed to power the onboard lightings, power amplifier, loudspeaker system and other DC loads.

The Duck Tour boats are amphibious tour boats on Singapore River. DUCKtours uniquely combines the city and harbour tour on an authentic Vietnam warcraft.

The solar power system includes our SHARP solar panels, charge controllers, batteries and solar cables.

Case Study: Vibration Instruments and Solar

Vibration instruments are used for measuring, displaying and analyzing vibration. Typically these instruments comprise a transducer, data acquisition and either a local display or some sort of output to a computer or another instrument. Vibration instruments can have many features, including incorporating features such as totalizing, local or remote display and data recording. They may be stationary or else portable field-type instruments.
Some of these instruments can even accept wireless data transmissions.

Normally, these field instruments run on lead-acid rechargeable batteries which require frequent field trips for power replacements once the batteries run out of power. Solar panels were used to eliminate the need for such troublesome trips.

A solar power system consisting of a solar panel, a deep cycle rechargeable solar battery and a charge controller is able to allow the instruments to run on power generated from sunlight. A sufficient battery backup capacity will give a few days of of power in case of bad weather where sunlight is not present.

Often, these instruments record data for a few hours only and not for the whole day. A timer can be added to switch on/off the instruments at preset intervals, saving precious battery power.

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